Change the colour of objects in your images

This workshop will introduce you to using layer masks, to make image adjustments.

Please Note: It would be beneficial to read through the whole tutorial before you begin to make yourself aware of the numerous shortcuts that are mentioned, also some paragraphs are cross referenced.

If you would like a print out to read, please follow the links at the end of this workshop.

Please note: it is not possible to change the colours black and white using the methods shown in this workshop.

This was a commercial shot I took for a ladies only exercise centre. After the shoot was complete, the customer came back to me, and asked if I could change the colour of the exercise machine cushions. In this workshop I’ll show you how I went about doing this.

For demonstration purposes I’m going to change the cushion colour to “red”.

This is the Image I captured at the photo shoot.

Step 1: Make sure you can see your layers pallet. If you are unable to see the layers pallet, Go to Window>Layers, or press F7 on your keyboard.

Step 2: In the layers palette click on the half black and half white circle. This is the “create new fill or adjustment layer” icon.

In the flyout menu, click on, Hue/Saturation. This will create a “Hue/Saturation 1” layer in the layers palette, and also open the Hue/Saturation box. In the Hue/Saturation box leave Edit set to master and adjust the Hue and Saturation sliders to create the colour your require. I used Hue 90, Saturation +40, Lightness 0. This is slightly over saturated, but it is OK for this demonstration.

You will notice that the Hue/Saturation adjustments effect all of the colours in the image. This is not a problem, click OK to accept the adjustments.
This is what my image now looks like. I have my red cushion colour, but some strange colours elsewhere.

Your layers palette should now look like this, with a new “Hue/Saturation 1” layer.

Step 3: Click the default “foreground and background colours” icon in the toolbox.

Then click the “switch foreground and background colours” icon, so that black is the foreground colour.